I. Musk went crazy
People are cows, and there is less scruples when they talk. Musk, who just bought Twitter, announced that he was buying Coca-Cola.
On the 25th, US time, Twitter's board of directors accepted a $44 billion privatization acquisition by Us billionaire Elon Musk (Musk). Contrary to the gesture of throwing poison pills before planning to reject Musk's acquisition, the board and Musk turned their faces and held hands, just in two 10 days.
After Twitter succeeded, Musk announced on the 28th that he would buy Coca-Cola, which is currently worth nearly $290 billion, which is worth Musk's entire wealth, while Twitter only spent $44 billion, but 1/6 of the net worth. I heard that Musk talked about buying Coca-Cola, and some people released information in Musk's name, why don't you buy McDonald's and fix all the coffee machines in it. Musk said, please, I can't do miracles either.
However, Musk's post-acquisition integration strategy sounds very to the point, improving Twitter only needs to release the small sparrow; to boost Coca-Cola, just re-add cocaine (drugs, promote central nervous system excitement).
Musk, who is about to become the twitter boss, is already anxious, tweeting: Twitter and TikTok have now been hanged by Trust Social because Twitter has censored free speech.
On the other hand, Twitter hasn't made a few years of money. Twitter has lost 4 of its last 6 years in net profit, and only made money in 2018-2019.
II. Strive for freedom of expression
Billionaire, Space X, Tesla CEO Musk's privatization of Twitter began directly on April 14, when Musk suddenly made a private takeover offer to Twitter's board of directors at $54.2 per share, and repeatedly emphasized that the reason for the acquisition was "Wei Guangzheng":
1. Free speech is the foundation of a democratic society, and Twitter has the potential to become the world's largest free speech platform, which is why Musk invested in Twitter;
2. Unfortunately, Twitter does not respect free speech, so the potential is not released. For Twitter to become the world's largest platform for free speech, reforms must be made, and to do so, it must be privatized. So, I Musk made a privatization offer to the board;
As for the privatization price, it is $54.2 per share, a premium of 54%, which is high enough to be full.
Also, my style is that I don't like to bargain and pull and pull. If you don't accept my deal, I'm going to have to reconsider my shareholder status.
Rich and willful, like buying cabbage. The day after Musk issued the takeover offer, the board unanimously voted no, saying that if Musk dared to do it, the board was ready to feed him a "poison pill."
III. Love-hate feud with Twitter
But Musk isn't a vegetarian either. He's going to reinvent Twitter, and he's been plotting for a long time.
At the time of the tender offer, Musk had more than 85 million followers on Twitter, a veritable big V on Twitter. The Twitter account has also become the marketing IP of Musk and several of his companies, and Musk is here to call the wind and rain, and the value of assets cannot be underestimated.
But Musk also suffered several big Waterlooes on Twitter. One was in 2018, when he said he wanted to take Tesla private for $42.3 billion, which plunged him into a lawsuit by the SEC and Tesla shareholders. Despite a later settlement with the SEC, the shareholders' class action lawsuit continues, and the latest ruling in a U.S. court shows that Musk's tweet at the time was false information.
The most profound one was that Musk was finally forced to sell Tesla stock to pay $11 billion in taxes under the call of Twitter users. Because Musk does not receive a salary at Tesla, his main wealth is to hold shares in Tesla and Space X, which have not been sold before, so they have not paid taxes. Seeing that the richest people in the United States did not pay a single tax, lawmakers and netizens launched a tax campaign on the Internet. Forced to be anxious, Musk forwarded Cao Zhi's seven-step poem on Twitter to send out a sad cry, HUMAN, boiled beans to burn beans, beans crying in the kettle, ben is the same root, fry He is too anxious. The people of Europe and the United States were greatly puzzled, and they analyzed why Musk used Chinese to discuss boiling beans.
In short, after happily feeling the sourness and market influence of the social media platform, I felt itchy teeth about not being able to speak freely and being forced to pay taxes. So Musk quietly entered the village and bought a major shareholder in the secondary market.
If it is just a personal grudge, it is obviously not enough to get the support of the public and shareholders, and it is too much to underestimate Musk. When Musk launched the takeover offer, he was upset that conservatives' speech had been deleted and banned on Twitter, and their freedom of speech was greatly restricted, claiming that the acquisition was to maintain the foundation of the operation of American democratic society - freedom of speech, and this acquisition was to open up opportunities for their freedom of speech. Speaking of conservatives, Trump is also a piece. So, after Musk's acquisition was successful, Trump immediately expressed congratulations, saying, Big Brother, you are a good person. In addition to congratulations, I added a sentence with some affection, that is, if you give me back my account, I will not return to Twitter, and the self-esteem of the commander-in-chief is hurt.
Musk believes that Twitter must win public trust more than it must remain politically neutral, which can effectively hedge the far left and the far right equally.
After Musk proposed a privatization tender offer, Twitter's board was seen as facing a dilemma between maximizing shareholder value and the values of free speech.
In response to Musk's criticism of Twitter's restrictions on free speech, Twitter CEO Agrawal believes that the first article of the U.S. Constitutional Amendment on freedom of expression is directed at the government, not the private company. Therefore, the freedom of expression law is not suitable for requiring Twitter to operate as a private company.
Moreover, Agrawal also believes that in the Internet age, everyone can easily express themselves through the Internet, freedom of speech is no longer a problem, the key to the problem now is whose voice can be heard by others, so healthy dialogue and communication is the goal of the company, not freedom of speech. In fact, Twitter manages speech to create a healthy communication environment.
In fact, financially, Twitter is not profitable, the last 6 years and 4 years of net profit loss, only 2018-2019 made money, for the full year of fiscal 2021, Twitter revenue was $5.08 billion, up 37% year-on-year, with a net loss of $221 million, compared to the net loss of $1.14 billion in 2020. However, as an asset-light company, its gross profit margin has averaged 65.19% in the past 6 years. Among the expenses, R&D expenses and sales expenses are mainly, with R&D expenses accounting for 24.56% of revenue and sales expenses accounting for 23.16% of the company's revenue in 2021. In the first five years, the proportion of sales expenses was higher than that of research and development.
Musk tweeted, I don't care about money at all. He claimed that the freedom of speech he cared about was the foundation at which a democratic society operated. Musk tweeted: "I hope that the most ferocious comments on me can be kept on Twitter, because this is the true meaning of free speech." ”
III. Poison Pill Program, Musk Twitter back and forth from the board
The day after Musk issued the tender offer, Twitter's board said it had prepared a poison pill plan and rejected Musk's hostile takeover.
The poison pill plan is that when any individual or entity increases its shareholding to 15% without board approval, Twitter will allow existing shareholders other than the 15% stake to buy Twitter's shares at a discount, thereby diluting the control of the majority shareholder. Musk's shares are diluted, and he may not be able to control Twitter, let alone reform.
Musk heard that he was going to give poison pills, which was not fun, and immediately said that he was stepping down from the board. Twitter's ECO Agrawal listened, and that's the best thing to do. Jack, Twitter's co-founder and majority shareholder on the board, also echoed the post that a good board may not necessarily do a good job, but a bad board can kill the company in minutes. When I said this at the moment of the transaction tug-of-war, the attitude was very obvious, that is, Musk broke the board after entering the board.
Why do several directors talk that way? How did Musk get on the board? Apparently with the consent of these several.
Since January 31 this year, through nearly three months, Musk has successively held 9.1% of Twitter's shares in the secondary market, becoming the largest shareholder. After the disclosure, Twitter CEO Agrawal had several in-depth conversations with Musk, and then said that Musk's joining the board can bring great value to the company.
On April 4, the two sides signed an agreement, and Musk was invited to join the board. One of the signings is a legal confirmation of Musk's joining the board, and Twitter asked Musk to promise in the agreement that he would not increase his stake to 14.9% during his term as a board member. Musk readily agreed.
After signing the contract, Twitter CEO Agrawal tweeted and cheered, Jack, the largest shareholder on the board of directors, also tweeted that he was very happy, and Taylor, chairman of the board, reposted Jack's happiness and lightly expressed his support.
After entering the board, Musk pondered for 10 days, and immediately after trying to understand, he told Taylor, the chairman of Twitter's board, that I think it is still necessary to take twitter privately, and the reason is what is said above, democracy and freedom of speech. The ink of the agreement has not yet dried, and Musk is impatient to tear up the agreement.
However, after being threatened by The Twitter board to throw out the poison pill plan and oppose the hostile takeover. Musk's good guy did not eat the immediate loss, while making it clear that he would withdraw from the Twitter board to retreat, but secretly, Musk did not give up his efforts. While negotiating, he threatened the big V to use freedom of speech as a banner to introduce shareholders and social forces to put pressure on the board.
Musk launched a vote on Twitter to take the takeover, and 85 percent of the voters voted for it. As the number one Twitter V after Trump was banned, Musk played a lot of social media.
Musk danced with long sleeves on social platforms. Before the secondary market bought Twitter, a vote on free speech and a democratic society was launched on Twitter, which was also supported by the majority, when Twitter CEO Agrawal expressed concern about Musk's play, and Twitter employees had been physically threatened by some extremists for free speech. Musk expanded the united front after receiving online voting support before quietly buying a major shareholder in the secondary market. The philosophy of fighting steadily and steadily, completely people's war.
After becoming a major shareholder, he enters the board of directors. Immediately launched a tender offer, in the PK with the board, Musk threatened the power of 85 million fans, launched a tweet whether to support its privatization acquisition of Twitter, summoning the "dragon". In the middle, Musk continued to sprinkle dog food to Twitter users, saying that if my acquisition succeeds, I will beat the robots that send spam mail. Musk, who has caught the pain points of users, has received a lot of support for the vote to take private acquisitions. Don't play too slippery.
At the same time, Musk constantly signals to suggest progress, one moment _is the night, the other moment Love is tender, is understood as, surprise is tonight, can not be forced to marry, love should be gently discussed.
In the face of hard and soft, Twitter's board quickly surrendered. On April 25, the board announced a unanimous vote to accept Musk's privatization acquisition.
Musk forced the palace to succeed.
As a deep user of Twitter, with free speech as the call, 85 million fans, and the power of capital, turned from a user to a shareholder, into a board member, and then, also acquired the company, became the boss.
Private capital dictates freedom of speech on social platforms, which is radical private capitalism. This, this, this, is not the familiar disorderly expansion of capital?
To borrow another step to speak, Jack, co-founder of Twitter, and Musk were originally old friends, and Musk quietly entered the village, not for a while and a half. The two sides talk happily with each other for a while, say that the other party is a bad guy who breaks into the board of directors, and then they have to talk about love gently and can't be strong. This drama is very fresh and relaxed, and it is difficult to say that the board of directors and Musk are not playing double reeds for the leeks to see.
V. Musk's integration direction for acquiring Twitter
After hearing that Musk bought Twitter, the banned conservative remarks Big V Trump sent a congratulatory message saying, Big Brother, you are a good person. However, even if you return the account to me, I will not come back to Twitter.
So, after the acquisition, how does Musk defend his claim to freedom of speech and make Twitter the world's largest free speech platform?
That is, how Musk integrated the acquired Twitter.
Musk has begun to indulge in creating an imaginary empire of free speech, musk has said that money is not important to him, and it is important to acquire and build one of the world's largest free speech platforms.
However, in addition to the cheers of conservative representatives Trump, many people are worried about Musk's freedom of speech, saying that freedom must be considered in balance with responsibility. Otherwise, the kingdom of free speech could be reduced to a quagmire of internet violence. A Twitter employee is also very anxious, because he can't find Musk himself for a while, he uses the way of recording videos in the office to shout in the air, asking Musk to consider and reconsider, thinking that after letting go of freedom of speech without principle, it will give bad guys an opportunity to take advantage of it and pose a threat to the personal safety of Twitter employees.
In this regard, Musk tweeted in response on the 27th, saying that as far as freedom of speech is concerned, I will briefly and concisely say that it is to match the law. I'm against the kind of censorship that goes beyond the law a lot. If people don't want as much freedom of speech, they'll ask the government to pass laws to make changes. Excessive censorship above the law is therefore contrary to the will of the people.
Free speech may increase user activity, but it will not solve the problem fundamentally, and more BUY & BUILD capabilities will be needed. However, Musk has also said that he will open source the content algorithm to encourage more people to participate in collaborative innovation.
Musk said that there are several measures to make the Twitter platform better, including developing new features to enhance products; making back-office algorithms open source and increasing external trust; and cracking down on bots that post spam and authenticate all users.
Musk has played metaverse and virtual currencies, a tweet, and the price of Bitcoin has jumped up and down. After the news of Twitter's board of directors accepting the acquisition, the digital currency Dogecoin soared by more than 20%, and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum also stopped falling and turned up after the acquisition news was announced.
But just after the board announced its acceptance of Musk's acquisition, Tesla's stock price fell by more than 12%, and its market value evaporated by more than $100 billion. The market is worried that Musk's mind is no longer in the real economy, and there is less care left for the old love with the new love.
For now, it seems that Musk wants to push for Twitter's big reforms and get caught up in deep involvement in operations, which may cause him to run out of time. When the deal closes, Musk will be in charge of Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, and he also owns two smaller businesses, Boring Company and Neuralink.
Musk's acquisition will objectively provide traffic and a platform for his layout of the metacosm. After Musk successfully changed the vision and vision of human beings, marching into space to let more non-scientists ride on his rockets and get rid of the shackles of the earth to travel to space, now Musk has acquired Twitter, providing a platform for the meta-universe of the human yuan god.
All the way to the brave Iron Man Musk, how to reorganize Twitter, the ability to overcome rookies, back to the top, wonderful wait and see.